In a far-flung place, an alien world has just been discovered by humans. It is a world completely unlike our own, full of bizarre trees, strange fruit, and unnamed animals. Discoverers have yet to fully explore this strange place, but as they encroach, they bring their guns and their best soldiers to tame this foreign environment.
They have already chosen a name for this ”New World”: America.
Except that name was taken. So they named it: Japan.
But that name was also taken. So they named this new frontier “Pandora”.
In this wild, untamed world, humans have established an outpost — a small measure of humanity in the wild and rugged edge of civilization. Why has humanity encroached upon this world? Well, it turns out that in this untamed wilderness, there is something precious, something valuable, something truly unobtainable, buried deep within the soil of this world. We could call it something ridiculous like “gold” or “spice”, but let’s call it something like this: “unobtainium”.
Either way, it doesn’t really matter what it is (or even what we use it for), it just matters that we want it. We want it bad.
Enter our protagonist. He is a dangerous but good-looking hero-type. He’s the kind of guy we all can identify with — all the guys want to be like him and all the (straight) girls want to be with him. Yet, recently, he fought in a terrible battle where he was badly wounded, leaving him an empty shell of a person (which we can tell by his excessive facial hair).
Except our hero’s kind of short…
… and he’s in a wheelchair.
Meanwhile, the native people of this wild, alien place are completely unlike us. They appear to be stronger than us. They ride horses and use bows, arrows, and small bladed weapons to fight. They have long black hair (maybe with feathers or beads in it) but over their bodies they wear almost nothing at all (mostly coarse animal skins shaped into cloaks or loincloths)…
…except let’s make them blue!
Our hero initially distrusts the Natives (let’s call them the ”Na’vi”), but through irrelevant plot twists, he ends up being brought to the Na’vi camp. He meets the old Na’vi leader, and the war-like, untrusting, Na’vi prince (who is next in line to lead the Na’vi community). Although they should probably have killed our hero because they are at war with his people, instead (for irrelevant plot reasons) they choose to care for him. And eventually, our hero is taught their ways and their language by the beautiful daughter of the chief Na’vi. This woman is a member of the Na’vi, although she doesn’t quite fit in like the others:
Yet, she knows the ways of the Na’vi. She’s also beautiful, feisty, yet wildly sexy…
… and she’s blue and has a tail!
Underscoring how wild and unusual the Na’vi civilization is, our romantic love interest has a strange, virtually unpronouncable name, like “Taka” or “Neytiri”. But, our hero soon finds that he integrates into the Na’vi civilization, and grows to love their deep spirituality and “one-ness” with their surroundings. He learns about how they are in tune with nature, and grows to find his own deep connection with the wilderness.
He grows his hair, and changes his appearance to look more like his newfound Na’vi brothers and sisters.
He also falls in love with our romantic love interest (and even takes her as a mate), cementing his inclusion into their society.
But then, the people of our hero’s old life, whom he now sees as the wild and untamed ones, once more make an appearance. So hellbent are they on getting “unobtainium”, that they threaten to destroy the peaceful way of life of the Na’vi. Their ferocity is embodied by a villain who represents pure capitalism, and one who represents warlike viciousness.
Our hero is torn between his new life and his old life. Complicating matters, he is initially cast out by his Na’vi brothers because he is still unsure if he remains a part of his old people, yet his old war buddies believe that he has “gone native” and can never return to his old ways.
To regain the trust of his Na’vi brothers and sisters, our hero masters their ways, and becomes a legendary warrior even by the standards of the Na’vi. Perhaps he shoots buffalo better than the other Na’vi…
or maybe he wields a samurai sword better than the other Na’vi warriors…
…or perhaps he even manages to tame the biggest, scariest bird in the sky (a feat accomplished by only five others in all of Na’vi history).
Either way, he proves that not only is he like all the other Na’vi, he’s actually better than all the other Na’vi. In so doing, our hero becomes the de facto leader of the Na’vi tribes. In that position, our hero wages war on his former civilization, pitting their guns against the bows and arrows (and guerilla tactics) of the vastly outnumbered, underdog Na’vi.
At this point, insert a giant battle scene that consumes 75% of the film’s budget.
Whether the Na’vi win or lose is really kind of irrelevant, but sufficed to say, our hero proves himself a full-fledged member of the Na’vi. At the end of the movie, he gets the girl and the Na’vi, in turn, embrace him as one of their own and he goes off into the still untamed wilderness to live out the rest of his days as a Na’vi warrior and husband.
Cue blackout, roll credits, and watch the ticket money pour in.
(This post aside, ‘Avatar’ is a visually stunning movie, and you should really go check it out.)
Found Avatar to be a 3 hour waste of my time, from the stereotypical mystical tree hugging natives, that need to be save by a white dude, to the crummy dialog. I know that James Cameron is a fellow Canadian, but come on.
The movie was so damn pretty, though!
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Gil Asakawa, visualizAsian.com. visualizAsian.com said: Spot-on, hilarious evolution of "Avatar" from "Dances w/ Wolves" to "Last Samurai" to the new hit movie. http://bit.ly/4DW8MQ [...]
Thanks, great post. Juxtaposing these white-guy-savior movies this way makes it really clear that in terms of (racist) plot, Cameron’s movie is a same-old same-old.
I wasn’t impressed. Hollywood movies that use CGI depend on visuals to make up for mediocre scripts, bad editing, and directing. Think of every CGI animated movie over the past 20 years. When you look at their overall product value, the majority of them are not very good.
meant production value.
LOL! I love this comparison you made! :] I haven’t seen Avatar yet, but if I do, I would most definitely see it for the VISUAL aspect! I have no care for the storyline (as you’ve already “subtly” pointed out, it’s the same old, same old), but my friend, who is into design, freaked out over the visual effects because it was like heaven for him!
Works for Dune, too.
I haven’t seen the film, but the White-Savior-Goes-Native meme is very predictable.
As for the visuals, I wonder if it’s considered good because of the use of 3-D. I saw a trailer for the film and it didn’t really impress me.
Given that Avatar is one of most expensive films in history costing a whopping $300 million, it should at least deliver in terms of CGI effects.
I haven’t watched it yet, but I learned that all actors portraying the Na’vi are POC (mostly black, except a Native American who was also in Dances With Wolves). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar_%282009_film%29#Na.27vi
What annoys me about these films is that not only are they racist, but they are also white supremacist. “Anything a person of color does, a white person can do better.”
“As for the visuals, I wonder if it’s considered good because of the use of 3-D. I saw a trailer for the film and it didn’t really impress me.”
I don’t think the trailer does the film justice. As a science nerd as well as a graphics designer, what really impressed me about the film is how you are immersed in this alien world. There was a lot of thought put into creating Pandora, from the design of the plants and the animals to the culture of the Na’vi (although a lot of that IS drawn from Native American culture). It’s a movie I would insist be watched in 3D, because it’s really about establishing the world of Pandora, and 3D enhances the sense that Pandora is a real, living, breathing place.
As a science nerd, I LOVED the creature design. You could see how the film’s creators spent a lot of time coming up with a common biological/anatomical theme, and how all of the animals evolved from a common ancestor, yet still were adapted to their particular survival strategy. Even the plants seemed to “make sense” in the world of Pandora, even if they were completely unlike any animals we’ve seen.
Also, as a science nerd, I loved the fact that the film suggests that all of the creatures of Pandora are connected to each other. I study proteins that connect cells together, and I’m fairly sure those proteins are what’s connecting all the animals of Pandora. The scientists even perform a large-scale version of a common lab technique we use to study cell coupling. Geek out!
Avatar’s not just a CGI movie, it’s the best CGI movie I have ever seen. It integrates almost flawlessly between CGI and live action, and you really don’t feel like you’re looking at a cartoon. It’s worth seeing PURELY for the technological boundary that’s pushed in terms of filmmaking.
The plot is incidental, bordering on irrelevant and stupid. The plot is a cliche, and yes, it is the same racist trash we’ve seen in the past. But, that doesn’t mean “Avatar” was a complete waste of my time and money; visually, it was just stunning.
@Restructure: yeah, all of the Na’vi voices are voiced by African American actors except for Wes Stuti, who has kind of a bit role as the Chief Na’vi. I think that cements the point that the Na’vi are intended to be people of colour. Furthermore, the “sympathetic” humans include the only minorities (one South Asian, one Latina) shown in the film, whereas the out-and-out bad guys are White.
Damn, Jenn drank the cool-aid. I’m just kidding. If you liked the movie that’s fine I don’t think anyone will get on you for that. Visuals don’t impress me, I like the idea of suspending belief and enjoying a movie for it’s content, in this case Avatar just wasn’t worth watching
On a side note, I’m not sure a earth sized moon orbiting around a Jupiter gas giant type planet could support life as we know it. It doesn’t have a moon which would effect the rotation of the planet so it’s possible that days and nights would stretch on for months or years. The gravity of the planet it is rotating around plus the gravity of the star it is rotating around would probably put tremendous strain on the planet itself which would probably make it’s surface hostile do to earthquakes and volcanic activity not to mention the radiation coming from the planet itself, it would be to massive to have a crust yet to small to be a star but still give off radiation from it’s core.
Or maybe Avatar was a visual masterpiece, Keith. Seriously. I cringe at yet another ‘White man finds humanity through non-Western cultural immersion’ film, but to discount the overall worth of this film for that reason makes no sense.
Science fiction, at its finest, redefines human possibilities through the display of human interaction with new technologies and new relalities. What makes this movie useful for it’s audience is its total immersion in the sheer alienness of Pandora. Nothing is left to chance: even the air is too different to prove safe. The movie’s thematic core revolves around the tension in human civilizations to either terraform new surroundings into palatable human enclaves, or to change humanity’s interactions with the New World, and it’s people.
I can laugh along with Jenn’s post because so-called liberal Hollywood often uses the ‘going native’ theme to illustrate the cultural costs inherent in this tension, as we found in Avatar. But it’s not fair to assume that movies that deal with the ‘how to handle the aliens/ darker peoples’ terraform vs. cohabitate issue are automatically bad.
Avatar was a brilliant film. Like the best written science fiction, it aptly described a new world with such voluminous detail that you couldn’t help but desire more. This was the filmmaking equivalent of Frank Herbert’s Dune: epic in scope, with the biology and ecology of the alien world at the heart of the movie. So what if Saw Worthington danced with blue samurai? I’m not dismissing that, but Avatar was simply cool.
“Science fiction, at its finest, redefines human possibilities through the display of human interaction with new technologies and new relalities.”
Sci fiction removes us from our daily lives and forces us to examine some aspect of humanity, good or bad, from an unfamiliar environment. Kind of like creating a controlled experiment in a petri dish. Did I get that from Avatar? Again I go to see movies to enjoy the entire experience 3 hours of looking at the same rain forest, no matter how great it looks, gets boring real quick. Was their a moral lesson? Not really, every character in the movie was cliched’ down to the racist coronal who called the white savior a race traitor.
“Avatar was a brilliant film. Like the best written science fiction, it aptly described a new world with such voluminous detail that you couldn’t help but desire more.”
“What makes this movie useful for it’s audience is its total immersion in the sheer alienness of Pandora.”
But Pandora isn’t alien at all. We can recognize some version of each species we are introduced to on screen. Even the Na’vi can pass for human.
I’m not trying to be argumentative, Avatar demonstrates my problem with big studio Hollywood movies, and the American movie industry all together, All flash and no substance with a bit of racism thrown in.
One more thing, I remember watching a interview John Cleese did for cycso systems. He was asked about how he felt about technology and he said something that I thought was really profound. He said that his friend Dudley Moore was not a photographer but he liked cameras. What he was getting at was that people get caught up in technology instead of doing what they intended to do in the first place. That’s what CGI is to me, a distraction, I can always look at a pretty picture anytime, I like watching movies.
Damn, now I misspelled Cisco Systems.
[...] compares Avatar to other films in which whites make incursions into indigenous [...]
I like so many works of fiction and non-fiction that are also problematic, but if I disliked any work that was problematic, then I would dislike everything. So I like things while viewing them critically. There are so many -isms in the world that it’s really hard to find anything pure.
But given Jenn’s science-nerd, I really have to watch Avatar now.
* science-nerd explanations
” There are so many -isms in the world that it’s really hard to find anything pure.”
I completely agree. I don’t think that there really IS anything “pure” in terms of media and sociopolitical identity.
But, like I said, I geeked out with Avatar. The stuff I liked is definitely “between the lines”, rather than explicit, but it warmed my geeky heart.
I would make the arguement that Avatar is more metaphysical than scientific. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that James Cameron is a member of the church of Scientology.
Would putting Will Smith in the lead have helped? Or the guy from 2012, Ekefor(sp?) (good actor, albeit a tad cerebral for blockbuster lead). Tangentially, does Will Smith ever kiss a white woman in his movies?
quit saying na’vi are straight from native american culture ideas, james c already said they were mostly inspired by south african culture and bits of native american
when was the last time native americans made clicking noises and had braids…
HollyWhite almost pulled a fast one on me.
Funny fuckers
Wow I just watched this it was so cliche. It was basically that episode of futurama on mars where Fry had to prove he fit in with the martians by flying the bugallo. Only with a 300 million dollar budget and looking slightly more cartoony. As a science geek I was rather depressed that all the animals seemed to have a built in USB port that only one species could take advantage of. Evolutionarily speaking it didn’t really make sense that the blue monkey elves would be able to literally control all other species on the planet by jacking their brains into them but all other species having the same equipment were on a receive only status.
The rotary airvehicles seemed unweildy. The giant stacks of bombs being slid down the cargo ramp were beyond hilarious. The only really sci fi premise was the Avatars themselves and considering how overused that’s been. (In the same year surrogates and Gamer. both came out) I wouldn’t even call it much of a sci fi movie. It’s simply a cultural translation movie wherein the mua dib type character comes to the planet becomes part of the natives surpasses them and somehow that shows how his own people suck. I’d say it was pretty but if I want to see pretty emersive computerized pictures I play HD video games. Spend 3 hours playing oblivion with an HD monitor and you’ll definitely be more emersed than this silly movie makes you.
Pretty
Great effects
linking via tail – original
BUT
everything else was predictable and traceable to some mainstream SciFi, Cowboys & Indians, Fanatsy & Vietnam films (even ‘Ride of the Valkyrie’ was referenced when the gun ships were going to attack – Apocalypse Now).
US Marine saves the world (again)
Also in the fight sequences I half expected to see Brian Blessed lead his Hawkmen (Flash! 1980) out of the Floating Islands (Gulliver’s Travels – c1726 !!!)
While trailblazing in it’s FX, I fear this film will be well and truly lampooned in the not too distant future.
[...] The Last Airbender (because, of course, the term “Avatar” is now inextricably linked to blue cat-people), was going to star a virtually all-White cast. Both Aang and Katara, the male and female [...]